Professionals who design the way you eat

Dutch pioneer Marije Vogelzang calls herself an eating designer. These are her projects

Marije Vogelzang uses food to engage with people and tell a story. She's the first 'eating designer' in the Netherlands, not to be confused with the term 'food designer'.

"Designers who work with the subject of food are often called 'food designers'," Vogelzang elucidates on her philosophy, "Food is already perfectly designed by nature." Vogelzang's designs and projects focus around the verb 'to eat' instead.

Project: Bits 'n bytes

For museum Boijmans van Beuningen in the Netherlands, Vogelzang created a huge low tech conveyor belt, where ball shaped food was transported by the participants and caused people to interact while eating. The installation supplied low tech mail messages, exchanging notes between people.

Project: Bastard bread

First, the Zaha Hadid Firestation at the Vitra campus in Germany was transformed into a bakery. Then, with the master baker Fritz Trefzger's help, Vogelzang and her team produced 2,500 bastard buns and love sentences made from bread, and arranged on a fragile installation using hundreds of metal pins to cover the walls.

Since the Vitra campus is located in Germany, between Switzerland and France, the idea was to create a new kind of bread combining the three breads that represent the countries: the German dark sourdough, the French baguette and the Swiss sweet Zopf bread.

Project: White funeral

Since the colour white symbolises death in many cultures, this meal consisted entirely of white food and especially designed white crockery. And in this atmosphere, the next of kin could share a meal and their memories.

Read more about Vogelzang’s seven-point food philosophy and projects in the Vogue September 2013 issue.

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At Bits 'n bytes, ball-shaped foods were passed around on a conveyor belt.

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Diners had access to a low tech texting device so they could interact.

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The German dark sourdough, the French baguette and the Swiss Zopf were combined into Bastard bread.

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Families who have lost loved ones were invited to eat and share memories at the White Funeral Meal, comprised entirely of white foods.